Kukla's Korner Hockey

My first concern was that the 12-year, $5.2-billion deal would spell the death of Hockey Night in Canada and eventual doom for the CBC — concerns that were much allayed after I read Brendan Kelly’s interview with former Montrealer (and dedicated Habs fan) Scott Moore, president of broadcasting for Rogers.

In one sense, Moore’s task should be easy. He has to sell hockey to Canadians, in a country where 98.2 per cent of the folks over age 10 are hockey fans and 95.7 per cent of those are in need of a good 12-step program. And although we like to think of ourselves as a hockey nation, we’re really a nation that watches hockey on TV. On a busy Saturday night, there might be 100,000 people in NHL arenas across the country, but millions watch on television.

The hard part for Moore will be to sort out the mess that is Hockey Night in Canada — and Saturday night’s HNIC telecast of the 4-2 Canadiens win over the Toronto Maple Leafs should give him plenty of food for thought.

First, we had Don Cherry (whose career has been one extended money grab, raking it in with his Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em videos without paying the guys who do the actual fighting a cent) accusing the players who filed a concussion lawsuit against the NHL of a money grab. Roughly three days after I defended Cherry for the one and only time, he made me regret my words.

Cherry is an out-and-out Leafs fan, but if the rest of the broadcast offers some balance, you can ignore Cherry. Saturday night (hush, people), the play-by-play and the commentary from Jim Hughson, Craig Simpson and Garry Galley were fine, as they usually are. They pointed out what the Habs did right and the Leafs did wrong.

It was when we got to the Hotstove that the telecast ran off the rails.

Comments

That bit about the players not receiving any money from the Rock Em Sock Em videos surely can’t be true, can it? He must have paid the rights holders (the NHL) for the footage, and part of the money must surely have been distributed to the players, I would think. Did old CBAs allow the NHL not to disburse any portion of such profit to players? I’d really like to hear if anyone has more knowledge of how that works.

First, we had Don Cherry (whose career has been one extended money grab

-Jack Todd

Not that I particularly care about Cherry, but this is rich coming from the likes of Jack Todd, who has built his entire career on branding self-gratification as valor and selling it to the gullible.

Posted by Riley on 12/01/13 at 09:59 PM ET

The short answer to your question is, yes, rights fees would need to be paid and would go into a big pot, from which the owners pay the players’s salaries. Or buy air conditioners. Any proceeds from Rock’em sockem would be a drop in a very big bucket of money that goes to a large number of things, including player salaries and Jeremy Jacobs’ horse farms. How much ultimately ended up with the players, the owners, the publisher and Cherry is anybody’s guess, but they all got something.

surely can’t be true, can it?

The author of this article is not exactly known for accuracy. We’re talking about a guy who deserted the US army because he didn’t like the lifestyle, then spent the next 20 years trying to come up with ways to turn a profit out of this crime.

I’ve read Todd’s book; he is one despicable human being. Lot of people who didn’t want to go to Vietnam weren’t bad people. Todd is not among them.

He is correct on the Leaf centric HNIC broadcast. Those not living in Toronto are tired having the Leafs shoved down their throat by the HNIC panel and management. Need a more balanced panel, have panelists from Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal instead of the same lame Toronto group that is always focused on Leafs.